El Salvador: Losing Ground

Death threats, army setbacks

Nicaragua was not the only Central American country in which the Roman Catholic Church was under attack last week. In neighboring El Salvador, the nation's two highest-ranking prelates became targets of a campaign of intimidation by death squads. In a terse communique delivered to a radio station, the rightist Maximiliano Hernandez Martinez Anti-Communist Brigade warned Archbishop Arturo Rivera y Damas and Monsignor Gregorio Rosa Chávez that they would suffer "drastic consequences" if their Sunday sermons did not stop criticizing human rights violations and urging dialogue with leftist guerrillas. The menace was taken seriously: El Salvador's last...

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